Two Artists in Sag Harbor: Peter Solow and Joanne Carter

Joanne Williams Carter's painting of an East End farm

 

"East End Effigies"

This weekend, “East End Effigies,” a show featuring the oil and watercolor paintings of Joanne Williams Carter, opens at Romany Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor. 

“This art show is kind of a combination of a variety of works,” explains Carter. “Effigies is the name, but it’s effigies as images, not as icons. It encompasses all kinds of images, both landscapes and still life. I wanted to put in everything that said East End and Sag Harbor.” 

Though Carter is a devoted painter, it was her love of singing that actually led to this show. That’s because when Carter joined the Choral Society of the Hamptons, she had the good fortune to meet gallery owner Romany Kramoris, also a fellow singer. 

“We are both altos,” explains Carter who joined the Choral Society five years ago. “I sit right behind her in rehearsal.” 

For the last two years, the women have been batting around the idea of a show of Carter’s work at Kramoris Gallery, but the timing never worked out — until now. 

“Either it was at a time when I didn’t have enough work, I was showing somewhere else or her calendar was full,” explains Carter. “But this year, we got the calendar set nice and early.”

In “East End Effigies” Carter will offer 10 paintings all inspired by life in and around Sag Harbor. Among the offerings are views of nearby farm fields, still lifes and Havens Beach as it looks in the off season — one of her “waiting for summer” paintings features the empty playground in winter, another, a dog standing in deep snow at the beach.

“I’m funny about painting. I can go six months and do nothing. I have to be inspired by something in order to paint it,” she says. “I saw this dog on the beach and he stayed still for so long, that I sketched him. I had my camera and snapped him too, so I had the two things to work from. The expressions I got from the sketch and I used the photo to capture the shadow because from minute to minute the sun changes the shadow.”

Carter came to painting quite by accident. Years ago, when she lived in Brooklyn, she drove Mrs. Moffett, a neighbor who was recovering from an injury, to and from painting and drawing lessons which she was taking as part of her therapy.

“The teacher said since you’re going to be here everyday, why not take lessons,” recalls Carter. “I said, ‘I can’t draw.’ He said ‘of course you can, everyone can draw. Some do it better than others, but everyone can do it. Everyone’s perception of life is different. You can have 20 artists in a room painting the same thing and all are different.’”

That teacher, artist Emmett Wigglesworth, inspired Carter for life.

“He was an abstract artist and did murals,” says Carter. “I started painting and drawing and having fun. Mrs. Moffett never did it any more after her therapy was over, but I went on to Brooklyn Museum of Art and LIU and studied painting there.”

Since those early days, Carter has amassed quite a lot of work. In recent years, Carter has done a good many landscapes and viewers of her work may notice that included in her pastoral rural scenes are the overhead wires that are ubiquitous in this country. While many painters might simply choose to omit them from their final product, Carter, conversely, embraces the wires as a symbol of modern times.

“They all have telephone wires in them,” says Carter of her landscapes. “I got fascinated with them because I know in another few years, they’ll be gone — the farms will be gone and the wires will be gone.”

“Not that I approve of the wires,” she adds. “But it represents an era in our time. With them gone, so too will be the countryside. It’s a changing landscape.” 

With this show, Carter will be offering watercolors as well as oil paintings. Carter, who has long worked in oil, has been gravitating more toward watercolors in recent years and she embraces both the challenges and rewards inherent in the medium.

 “I really have gotten to like watercolor, mostly because I’m fascinated with shadow,” says Carter. “I think you can do more with shadows and hints of shadow —you never know what you’re going to get. Watercolor is very unforgiving. It’s good for me because when painting in oils, I never drew anything, I just picked up a brush and did it. With watercolor you have to be much more precise. It’s been a good discipline for me. I Have to plan out the image. If oil goes wrong, you just paint over it. Watercolors you can’t do that with. Needless to say, I threw away a lot of paintings.” 

“I work with both my sketch pad and camera, especially with watercolor,” she adds. “You can’t always use watercolor on the spot, because it dries so fast. If you make a mistake you’re stuck, but I really love it. I prefer it to oil, though it’s much more difficult to master.”

 A more pressing difficulty has left Carter on the artistic sidelines in recent months — carpal tunnel syndrome. Carter has long suffered from the effects of the condition, and since last summer, has been unable to paint. In April, Carter had surgery on her hand which she hopes will fix the problem. Late last week, she was still in bandages, but optimistic she will be able paint again soon.

“I’m right handed and it is an issue,” admits Carter. “I told the surgeon, if you mess up my hand you mess up my whole life.”

“But the doctor says I will be painting away after next week.”

“East End Effigies” opens with a reception on Saturday, May 9 from 4 to 6 p.m. at Romany Kramoris Gallery, 41 Main Street, Sag Harbor (725-2499). The show runs through May 21. 

"Piazza SA, Florence" by Peter Solow

"Works on Paper"

For Peter Solow, an artist who’s used to working large, an exhibit at the John Jermain Memorial Library presents a unique set of difficulties.

“It’s round and small,” says Solow.

He’s describing the exhibition area, which is basically the area surrounding the library’s circular stairway to the second floor. 

“Many of the pieces that I would have wanted to put in were the wrong scale to fit in there,” he adds. “My paintings are really large, so it had to be works on paper. Even when I draw, it’s large. When I got to the space, I realized some of my more recent work just wouldn’t fit.”

In the end, Solow, who teaches art at Pierson High School, selected a group of small drawings that he feels will work well in the space.

“It’s all works on paper — an eclectic group of work,” explains Solow. “Most are of Italian subjects, there are also a couple East End landscapes and figures. I picked what I had available.”

In a way, the limitations of the exhibition space encourages introspection. This show will allow viewers who only know Solow from his large scale paintings to see a different side of the artist.

“I think drawing has been essential to what my art’s been about forever,” says Solow. Being an art teacher, however, takes time and Solow finds that he simply has not had the opportunity to concentrate on painting during the school year like he did in the past. 

“But I draw every day,” adds Solow. “I draw at home, on napkins, sketchbooks, small pieces of paper, or here in the classroom to demonstrate to the students. I have thousands of drawings. I also have larger scale paintings — five or six things I’m working on now, and very excited about. I’m waiting until the school year ends to focus on those.”

Not long ago, Solow, whose work is in the collections of many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had a 25 year retrospective of his work at Ashawagh Hall in Springs. Solow felt good about looking at that work for the last time, then putting it behind him. 

The next 20 years, he says, is about going forward.

“I always felt that the content was an excuse to paint,” says Solow. “Funny thing, when I lived in New York, I painted the East End. When I moved here, I painted Italy. I think that what I’m looking for is subject or content that is universal.”

In recent years, the content that has truly moved Solow is, indeed, impressions of Italy. He has led many Pierson High School trips to Italy as a teacher and strives to instill in his students the same passion for art that inspires him when he’s there. Classic Italian architectural elements populate his paintings and drawings — ancient piazzas, famous duomos or ornate edifices often form the basis of the scene. 

But within the framework of his art, Solow often adds abstract figures, or rather, subtle evidence of figurative elements, that have passed through the space in the minutes, days or centuries before. 

“You can feel the presence when you’re there, “ says Solow. “All the architecture and the art — the only way to appreciate it is in person.”

Unlike many of his Pierson students, Solow didn’t have the opportunity to travel abroad until he was an adult. The realities of life after college, and the struggle to establish himself as an artist while making ends meet precluded any sort of European adventure for a very long time. Finally, Solow did get to Italy, on a belated honeymoon with his wife, Elise Goodheart, where seeing classical paintings, sculpture and architecture in situ had a major effect on him. 

Many visits later, that still holds true for Solow. A couple years ago, he recalls going to the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice where he was profoundly moved by the paintings of Titian.

“I had never seen them in real life,” says Solow. “I knew them from when I was a kid. When I saw them — the plasticity in the paint, the tactile quality and looking at how they’re painted — it reminded me of why I wanted to be a painter in the first place.”

“It was a magical place and I was sharing it with students who didn’t know who Titian was,” says Solow. “For me, it was a moving moment, and I was seeing the magic that happens only in paint.”

But Solow feels that drawing is also magical, and sees it not as being separate from painting, but a different side of the same coin. The idea for the artist, he says, is to develop his own vision and vocabulary into a language.

“I think the goal is to see the connection between drawing and painting,” says Solow. “From the time I was at school, I always drew, but with a brush. There has always been a kind of linear quality to my paintings, which is one of the reasons many are on such a large scale. But if you look at the measurement of the width of a brush and that of a pencil point in relationship to the size of paper, the paintings end up being eight or six feet long.”

Whether he’s painting or drawing, Solow is quite a busy man these days. In addition to this show, he has also been helping his AP students prepare their digital portfolios and has also started exploring the world of solar plate etching with master printer Dan Welden.

“I have so many things going on, but I’m very calm about it,” says Solow. “A lot of people are not familiar with my work — this is a mini-snippet.”

And by the looks of things, the start of the next 20 years of Solow’s artistic journey.

“Works by Peter Solow” are on view at the John Jermain Memorial Library (201 Main Street, Sag Harbor, 725-0049) through May 31. The show opens with a reception this Saturday, May 9 at 3 p.m.